Frank Medlenka was the driver of horse drawn Steamer 8. The day of his death, the steamer was responding to a fire at the corner of McKinney and
Chartres, received from box #315. Hose Wagon 8 preceded Medlenka’s apparatus in crossing over the streetcar tracks at McKinney and Jackson where new tracks were being laid. As Hose Wagon 8 crossed the loose planks, they separated and cluttered the construction site. Steamer 8 then attempted to cross the same site when it overturned and fatally crushed Medlenka. He was taken to Saint Joseph Hospital where he died later that night.

Frank Medlenka’s name had been left off the Houston Fire Departments official list of fire fighters killed in the line of duty. In the early 1980’s, one of his great nephews had noticed that his uncle’s name was left off of the fire department official list. In a ceremony at Frank’s gravesite, his name was rededicated as a Houston Fire Fighter killed in the line of duty.

Frank had served as a Houston Volunteer fire fighter with Protection Company # 1 in the early 1880’s. He joined the ranks of the Houston fire department when it went to a paid
in 1895.